Sweet success

A change of power in one of the Caribbean's best-run and most stable democracies

IT WAS an all-night party in Barbados after the island's general election on January 15th. “Plenty change,” a Bridgetown bar-owner grinned, and he wasn't just referring to the mounds of cash he was counting. After 13 lonely years in opposition, three election defeats and a series of long-running party-leadership squabbles, David Thompson led his Democratic Labour Party (DLP) triumphantly back to power, with 20 of the 30 parliamentary seats. In the previous election, in 2003, it won just seven seats.

By American standards, the campaign was blissfully short. The election was called on December 20th, leaving just two lively weeks after the Christmas and new-year break to get the voters in. There is no great ideological gulf between Mr Thompson's party and the outgoing Barbados Labour Party (BLP). But from time to time Barbadians like to shake up the political scene. Although Owen Arthur, the BLP leader, was regarded as a good manager, people felt that he had become a little arrogant after his 13 years in power, and some of his party rather too comfortably settled.

Voters also fretted over rising food prices, cost overruns on a road project and property prices jacked up by villa-buying foreigners. Then there was a row over claims by the BLP that Taiwan had funded Mr Thompson's campaign in exchange for a promise of diplomatic recognition. This was hotly denied by the DLP, anxious to avoid a rift with China.

Barbados is one of the Caribbean's oldest and most stable democracies, consistently getting top-drawer rankings for its political and civil liberties. From 1639 an elected House of Assembly—not the British-appointed colonial governor—controlled the island's cash. The first mixed-race member, Samuel Jackman Prescod, won a seat in 1843. Universal suffrage eventually followed in 1951, and independence 15 years later. On a visit to the island in 1859 Anthony Trollope, a British novelist, found it irritatingly well run.

Barbados also tops all other Latin American and Caribbean countries in the UN Development Programme's human-development index. Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, ranks it second cleanest in the region, just behind Chile. In September unemployment hit an all-time low of 7%, down from a peak of 27% in 1993 when the DLP was last in power.

“Change” (of leadership) was the DLP's campaign watchword. The new government, which inherits an uncomfortably big public debt, equal to 88% of GDP, will have other changes to deal with, too. Important business decisions are increasingly likely to be taken in neighbouring Trinidad rather than Barbados. Many big local firms are already majority-owned by Trinidad shareholders. Now two Trinidad companies are fighting for control of Barbados Shipping & Trading, the island's biggest conglomerate.

Sugar, the economic mainstay until the 1960s, will lose its guaranteed European market by 2015, and is already suffering EU price cuts. Costs are among the world's highest, but cane keeps the landscape in good order. Shutting down sugar would dent the country's confidence, too. Mr Arthur had proposed a new $156m sugar factory, using cane for electricity and biofuel, and exporting pricey premium-brand Plantation Reserve sugar. The DLP called the plan a “mishmash”, but has yet to come up with a better one.

Meanwhile, the island's medium-sized independent hotels, the backbone of its tourist industry, are facing rising costs and increasing competition from cruise ships; some have closed. High oil prices will push up air fares this year. Further ahead, global (over)warming may cut the pulling power of Barbados's tropical beaches, now attracting over half a million tourists a year.

On the upside, there may be oil. In 2004 Barbados faced down Trinidad in a dispute over their maritime boundaries, and two years later won a big slice of seabed, which America's Geological Service believes may contain some generous deposits, though the waters are deep and the geology complex. A bid round for exploration rights, which has already sparked interest from several big oil companies, closes in April. Over to you, Mr Thompson.